The Virtuous Physician, and the Ethics of Medicine

Abstract

In the opening pages of his Dominations and Powers, Santayana asserts that “Human society owes all its warmth and vitality to the intrinsic virtue of its members” and that the virtues therefore are always “hovering silently” over his pages ([32], p. 3). And, indeed, the virtues have always hovered over any theory of morals. They give credibility to the moral life; they assure that it will be something more than a catalogue of rights, duties, and rules. Virtue adds that extra ‘cubit’ that lifts ethics out of its legalisms to the higher reaches of moral sensitivity.